Sunday, January 27, 2008

Back to Vet School: This time its personal

Well, I am stuck in again for Large Animal Anatomy, Neuroscience, Nutrition, Large Animal Radiographic Anatomy, Vet. Biochem, Physiology, Pharmacology, and Physical Restraint and Exam of Large Animals. Its a potpourri, a grab bag, a veritable plethora of meaty facts and exams. I have had all of my classes except the radiographic one and the physical exam. Large Animal anatomy is fun but unfortunately the University of Minnesota doesn't have a dissection site where you can follow along, sorry Laurie Spicher! I think I like the anatomy best, with neuroscience a close second. I think it will be a good semester, and I am changing my tune on the studying front. I am trying to work on flashcards and summary notes out of class. Should be interesting.
Other than that, I have been busy on articles and stuff. I have a grant going in for summer research at the vet school with any luck. Madison has been quite chilly but a break is in the offing. It looks like we'll have some good First Year Initiative trips if all works out.
Last weekend Meredith and I went to see BodyWorlds 1. The anatomy was fascinating especially brain sections and the horse. The artistic choices left some stuff to be desired and I thought a few poses were deliberately and inappropriately ghoulish but you'll get a flavor for it here.... Bodyworlds . Overall it was quite good though. The wall panels needed work, as Molly and Spiff from the Museum of the Rockies could probably attest to, but otherwise it was good. They do some very spiffy dissections.
Other than that (again), we had a great chinese meal last night with excellent Sichuan food. There was a numbing spice in it called hua chiao ("flower pepper") but sold at Penzey's spices as Szechuan peppercorns http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Zant_pip.html . It is uncannily like putting lidocaine on your tongue. The meal was excellent with dried pepper beef, Chon Jin chicken (sol's favorite) and some yummy eggplanty thingies. We will be going back (maybe this week....)..
On another note, I want to start including a neat link on the internet per week, for amusement purposes. This harkens back to me working on a large science site which can be seen here
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/paleontology/index.html
This one is on World War One with some interesting footage http://www.bbc.net.uk/history/worldwars/wwone also there is a web blog of WWI soldiers letters which you should see http://www.wwar1.blogspot.com/

2 comments:

Andy said...

Cool you got to see BodyWorlds - I saw it last year. I agree that some of the poses were a little much. . .I think the only thing I found slightly discomforting was that they couldn't really decide if it was an educational exhibit or Gunter von Hagen's personal art show. . .the little silver plates with his signature below each preparation were a little. . .odd. But as an anatomist, it rocks that the public can see real human bodies!

Me said...

Did you happen to sample the "beef" jerky in the BodyWorlds gift shop? I hear it's to die for.